Sanjaya and the other top-10 finalists come to Hartford for 'American Idols Live'

Wednesday

Aug 29, 2007 at 12:01 AMAug 29, 2007 at 8:08 AM

The start of the "American Idols Live" tour was just a little more than a week away when Sanjaya Malakar phoned in for an interview, and he was raring to go. Whether he knew the exact date of the first show might have been another issue.

ALAN SCULLEY

The start of the "American Idols Live" tour was just a little more than a week away when Sanjaya Malakar phoned in for an interview, and he was raring to go. Whether he knew the exact date of the first show might have been another issue.

"I'm really excited about the tour. It's going to be a blast," he said. "We've been doing rehearsals for the past, a couple of days, I think. I don't know, I have kind of a warped sense of time now."

Malakar can be forgiven for losing his bearings a bit. Since his debut this spring on the mega-popular talent show "American Idol," his life has been the epitome of a whirlwind.

He didn't win the competition. In fact, he was voted off of the show in April -- about halfway through the season -- and finished seventh. But that doesn't change the fact Malakar was the story of "American Idol" season six.

On the one hand, Malakar quickly built a fanatic following on "Idol," especially, it seemed, among young girls drawn to his charismatic stage presence, boyish good looks -- and of course, his full mop of hair, which turned out to be one of the biggest topics of discussion as he changed styles from episode to episode. One audience member, Ashley Ferl, even made a name for herself after cameras caught her bursting into tears whenever Malakar was on stage.

But many others weren't at all impressed with Malakar. A "Vote for the Worst" website that supported voting for Malakar to sabotage the show became news nationwide. Howard Stern started a similar campaign on his radio show.

Malakar was also savaged by in the media (the "Washington Post" labeled him a "talent amputee"). The always-blunt "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell at one point said he would quit the show after the season if Malakar won the "Idol" title. Like many of Malakar's detractors, Cowell was less than impressed by Malakar's singing talents and didn't think his stage presence made up for his shortcomings as a performer.

So while this summer's "American Idol" may be headlined by the winner of this season's competition, Jordin Sparks, and runner up, Blake Lewis, the top drawing card may well be Malakar.

It may not have been apparent on the television screen, but Malakar wasn't thrilled to be the center of so much attention.

"It makes me uncomfortable, kind of, when a lot of people are talking about me or putting energy toward me," he said. "So it was kind of weird to be in a situation like that where it was so concentrated."

Malakar said he did his best to ignore the intense media coverage and scrutiny so he could focus on the most important task -- his on-screen performances.

"I guess I trained myself to not really have to take that in and be able to ignore that and move on without really processing it," Malakar said. "I knew that if I let myself process it and think about it and spend energy on it, it would just get bigger. What people like that really are looking for is a reaction from whomever they're talking about. I knew that I couldn't give them a reaction because it's not worth it, putting energy into it. It's not worth it letting that kind of thing distract you when you're in a situation like we were in."

Even the many humorous comments about his ever-changing hairstyle didn't ruffle Malakar. (He was famous for his wearing a faux Mohawk for his March 27 rendition of No Doubt's "Bathwater" and his transformation to a slick shorter haircut for his April 3 performance of "Cheek To Cheek," when Tony Bennett was the guest celebrity.)

"Coming into the show I didn't care what my hair looked like," Malakar said. "I just wanted it to look nice and presentable because I was going to be on TV and I had never really been on TV. But then we got on the show and we got to the top 24 and we had hair stylists. They were really excited to get their hands on my hair."

It remains to be seen whether Malakar will do anything to make his hair a topic of conversation as "American Idols Live" hits Hartford. But he said he's looking forward to joining the other top-10 season six finalists as they team up for the tour.

"I get to sing a couple of songs with a couple of people," Malakar said. "I'm not going to tell you (the details) because I don't want to spoil it. I'm really, really excited. It's going to be really cool. We have a couple of numbers that I think are going to definitely be show stoppers.

"There are a couple of solos," he added. "There are also a lot of small group numbers. It's a nice kind of mix."

Originally published August 23, 2007

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